Salvation – Part 1 of 3

In 1953, two or three years after he grabbed me by the back of my belt and the collar of my shirt and threw me out of the syrup factory, my brother, John F. Stith Jr., became a Christian.

Here is his story, in his own words:

John F. Stith Jr.
John F. Stith Jr.: “There was a void, an emptiness I could not explain.”

“I have never worked any harder at a job than I did at the job of making Pioneer Syrup Company a success,” John wrote. But he wasn’t successful.

“Nothing I did seemed to be right. Each quarter the accountant who kept my books told me: ‘You’re losing money.'”

One day in the summer of 1953 John was working in syrup factory, alone, when he realized something was missing in his life.

“There was a void, an emptiness that I could not explain or even describe,” he said.

He had joined the church when he was 12 or 13 years old.

“I went to church as I had done before I joined the church; when I read the Bible, which was seldom, it was as meaningless as it had always been. In short, nothing really happened to me.”

“As I grew older…I went to church less and less frequently. I did absolutely nothing to further my spiritual growth. And interestingly enough, there was no one who seemed to care or to want to try to help me in such growth.”

He said he had an idea that the void he felt had something to do with the church.

“So, I told Mary [his wife] I was going down to see the preacher and I took off.”

Postscript: The “factory” John referred to was not on the farm. After Dad sold he farm in 1951 he relocated the syrup factory in a building on old Anniston Highway just outside Gadsden, AL.

Continued tomorrow: Salvation, Part 2.

Get Out And Stay Out

I don’t remember what I had done to tick him off –maybe he had discovered I was stealing jars of syrup and selling them to buy cigarettes– but my oldest brother, John, told me to get out of the syrup factory he ran at the farm and stay out.

John F. Stith Jr.
John F. Stith Jr., AKA “Mike”

John, Dad called him “Mike,” was a grown man. He had been in the Navy during WWII and was 16 years older. I just a kid, eight or nine.

My first mother died when I was five and my second mother didn’t have much control over Brother Dave or me. I didn’t figure anybody could tell me what to do except Dad so I didn’t think John could make his order stick.

Dad's strip mine, Altoona, AL, late 1940s or early 1950s.
Dad’s strip mine, Altoona, AL, late 1940’s or early 1950’s.

Dad had a strip mine near Altoona, AL, and he was there most days, digging coal, but not every day. So I waited. And when Dad stayed home one morning to take care of some business and he went out to the syrup factory, I followed him. He walked in and I walked in right behind him.

That was a mistake.

John grabbed me by the back of my belt and the collar of my shirt and threw me through an opening in the wall of the factory onto a coal pile outside.

John F. Stith Jr. AKA "Mike"
John F. Stith Jr. He was 17 when he joined, in 1944.

NOTE: During World War II John gave up a deferment, joined the U.S. Navy, and then volunteered to serve on a submarine. He washed out of submarine school when one of his eardrum burst during a pressure test and ended up on USS Pocomoke (AV-9), a seaplane tender, in the Pacific.

Coming Monday: Making Boys Into Men